


Step Into My Parlor

by Zai42



Series: Gore/Kinktober Prompts [18]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Ending, Blindness, Blood, Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 22:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16334252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zai42/pseuds/Zai42
Summary: The Institute falls.Prompt: Sensory Loss





	Step Into My Parlor

**Author's Note:**

> How many times can I write about the Watcher's Crown going horrifically?

The Institute falls, in the end. Jon dies in Martin's arms, human in those last moments, for the first time in a long time. He smiles, not happy, but satisfied, warmed by the flames that devour what had once been fated to be his temple.

  
Elias gets no such satisfaction. He flees into the tunnels, stumbling and bloodied, lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace. The Hunter stalks him, he knows; the coffin didn't manage to destroy all of Alice Tonner, but the last scraps of her have been scoured away with Basira's death, leaving teeth and claws and violence, all pointed at him.

  
Off to his right, a door creaks open, and his head snaps towards the sound, eyes staring, white and wide and unseeing. "I know you're there," he snarls. He pushes himself off one wall, arm outstretched until he finds the wall across from him and leans against it, inching forward. _"I see you."_

  
"Do you?" a voice asks. Like nails on a chalkboard; like static in the winter. Elias feels a frisson of something he thinks might be fear. "What do I look like, to you?"

  
"A _nuisance,"_ Elias spits.

  
The Distortion doesn't laugh, like it might have when it was Michael. The vague shadow Elias can make out bows its head as if in thought, one pointed fingernail tapping its lips. "Jon said I looked like Helen. I liked that better."

  
"Well, Jon is dead," Elias says. There is a howl from somewhere in the tunnels, and The Hunter rounds a corner. Elias doesn't dare to breathe.

  
"Probably for the best," says The Distortion. "For Jon, I mean."

  
"What do you want?"

  
"I only wanted to...see. Your ritual failed rather spectacularly."

  
Above them, the Archives burn. The thing that had once been Daisy Tonner is closing in on them, drawn by Elias' scent. The door behind The Distortion creaks open. Elias sees all of this and stares blindly at the monster in front of him.

  
"Would you like a way out," the Distortion asks, "or do you intend to let your Hunter rip you to pieces?"

  
He thinks, bitterly, that he should know which is the better option. Then again, if he were capable of knowing, he wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. He holds out his hand.

  
The hand that closes around his is gentle, but not so gentle that it doesn't cut him open. It hardly matters; he's already covered in blood. What's a little more as he follows willingly behind a Liar.

  
He feels like Jon, as the door clicks shut behind him.


End file.
